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When Cinci
"Whose dollars are you talking about, Bliss?" the old man-Darrow?-demanded. "The Confederates', after the war?"
Oh, sweet Jesus, Cinci
He had to be close to seventy. His skin was grandfather-pink. His jowls sagged. He combed thi
After coughing a couple of times, he pulled his wallet from a vest pocket. He looked down at a photograph in it, then over to Cinci
Again, the world didn't end. All Bliss said was, "I resent that, Mr. Darrow."
"Go right ahead," the other white man said cheerfully. "I intended that you should."
Plaintively, Cinci
"My pleasure," said the old man with the ferocious eyes. "I'm Clarence Darrow. I'm a lawyer. I've got a writ of habeas corpus with your name on it. That means you get out of jail. If you've got any brains, it also means you get the hell out of Kentucky."
"My God." Cinci
"So
"I know who's my country's friend and who ain't," Bliss said. "What do I need to know besides that?"
"How to live by the rules you say you're protecting," Clarence Darrow answered. The head of the Kentucky State Police snapped his fingers to show how little he cared about them. Darrow had been blustery before. Now he got angry, really angry. "What's the point of having a country with laws if you get around 'em any time you happen not to care for 'em, eh? Answer me that."
But Luther Bliss was not an easy man to quell. "This here's Kentucky, Mr. Darrow. If we played by the rules all the time, the bastards who don't would get the jump on us pretty damn quick, and you can bet on that. Half the people in this state are Confederate diehards, and the other half are Reds."
He exaggerated. From what Cinci
Cinci
"Wouldn't be surprised," Darrow said. "Wouldn't be one bit surprised. The law it's against is unconstitutional, of course, not that you care about the Constitution of the United States."
"Here's your nigger, Mr. Darrow." Bliss' air of calm frayed at last. "Take him and get the hell out of here. Or don't you think I could fix up a cell with your name on it right next to his?"
"I'm sure you could," Darrow said. "And I'm sure you could make it very unpleasant for me. But I'm sure of something else, too-I'm sure I could make it even more unpleasant for you if you did."
By the sour look on Luther Bliss' face, he was sure of the same thing. It didn't make him very happy. "Get out," he repeated.
"Come along, Mr. Driver," Clarence Darrow said. "Let's get you back to civilization, or what passes for it in the United States these days." He grunted with effort as he heaved himself to his feet. Cinci
Not till they got into the motorcar that had brought Darrow to the prison and the driver was taking them away did Cinci
"I don't believe in God, any more than I believe in Mother Goose," Darrow said. "Foolish notion. But I do believe in justice, and you deserve that. Everyone deserves that."
Cinci
Darrow gave him an odd look. "You've got grit, son, if you can joke after you get out of that place."
"I wasn't jokin', suh," Cinci
"Your wife finally raised a stink that was big enough for me to notice it," Darrow answered. "It took her a while, because people in the USA don't want to notice a colored woman even when she's screaming her head off. But she kept at it. Remarkable woman. Stubborn as a Missouri mule."
"Yes, suh," Cinci
"That's one first-class son of a bitch, is what that is," Darrow said. "Even after I got the court order, he kept denying he'd ever heard of you. But I managed to persuade a judge otherwise-and here you are."
"Here I am," Cinci
Darrow's grin displayed crooked, tobacco-stained teeth. "Your wife told me you'd say that. You don't owe me a dime-I did your case pro bono publico." He saw the Latin meant nothing to Cinci
"That's mighty kind of you, suh, but it ain't right," Cinci
"Your wife said you'd say that, too," Clarence Darrow told him. "But there's no need-I'll make more from publicity than you could pay. If you must, pay the favor forward-do something good for someone else. Bargain?"
"Yes, suh-so help me God," Cinci
"More of that claptrap." Darrow sighed. "Well, never mind. I hope you know better than to stick your nose back into Kentucky again?"
"Long as my folks ain't poorly for true, sure," Cinci
Clarence Darrow gave him a long, measuring stare. The lawyer delivered his verdict in one word: "Fool."
C oal smoke pouring out the stack, the train hurried toward the Salt Lake City station. Sparks flew as the brakes ground its iron wheels against the iron rails that carried it. Colonel Abner Dowling would rather have been somewhere, anywhere, else than on the platform waiting for that train to pull in. By the expression on his mustachioed face, General Pershing felt the same way.